Time to Celebrate!

How do you celebrate your Kindergartener’s birthday while inspiring their little minds to grow? I’ve got something fresh and fun for you to use:It is jammed-packed with hands-on, independent learning for your pre-K and Kindergarten kids!

1. Your students will celebrate by sorting SHAPES of presents, balloons, cakes and candle flames on the party mats.

2. Your students will celebrate with COUNTING and NUMBER ORDER. They will count and clip cupcakes; count and tally gifts and candles; roll, move, and stamp (or write) numbers from 1-6; put the candle numbers in order; and color-by-number sense code.

3. They will celebrate with ONE MORE and ONE LESS. They will count the gifts and clip the number that is one more. Then count the balloons and clip the number that is one less. Finally, they will roll one die and stamp dots on the presents–decorating the wrapping paper; roll two dice and add sprinkles to the cupcakes; roll three dice and add candles to the cakes. All of the adding sheets have ten and twenty-frames to help your newest mathematicians total their rolls.

4. They will have a blast celebrating with MORE, LESS, or the SAME (>,< or =). Your students will follow the signs on these clip-it cards. They will clip all of the object that are greater than, less than or equal to the target number. {This set covers numbers 0-5}.

5. Time to have some fun with PLAY-DOH! Your students will form their number and then roll that number of balloons, candles and presents.

6. Your students celebrate with LETTERS and ABC ORDER! Using the gift letters, or any other lowercase manipulative you have on-hand (you can also use a dry-erase marker), your students will finish the alphabet sequence. There is also a birthday crossword puzzle to enjoy!

7. They will celebrate with LETTER SOUNDS and MATCHING UPPERCASE with LOWERCASE. They will strengthen their phonemic muscles as they sort the pictures that begin with FR from those that begin with PR. They will also build easy-cut (gotta have easy-cut!) Party Puzzles–matching the uppercase and lowercase letters with items that begin with that letter sound (hard sound for G and long vowel sound for I).

8. Celebrate all of those BIRTHDAY MONTHS by sorting appropriately decorated cupcakes and month symbols. You can practice recognizing and ordering the months of the year; print a second copy of the cupcakes or monthly symbols and match them; match the cupcakes to their month symbols; and build the months of the year using the sorting mats, month name cards, cupcakes and symbols.

9. Finally, grab those crayons, scissors and some glue! It is time to celebrate by COLORING icing with the Cupcake Colors booklet (includes one version with colored prompts and another completely black-and-white). Your students will also practice SEQUENCING the steps they take to wrap a gift. After ordering the cards, they will match the phrases they have to the cards and then glue the phrases (in order) to their recording sheet.

You will definitely be crowned Teacher of the Year after this fun week of school! Your kids are going to LOVE completing all of the activities that lead up to the BIG celebration of their birthday.